I can remember being really exhausted at various times in my life. The moment that always sticks most firmly in my memory was the first time I was told to run laps in full pads during football practice in high school right after I started playing on the team. All exercise related activity up until that point had been fun: going to the beach, playing soccer on a public league, skateboarding, etc. Running on a high school football team was (in the mind of fourteen year old me) serious business.

After doing my laps, my body was mentally and physically done. Standing up hurt. Breathing hurt. Trying to move hurt.

Since then, I’ve had similar moments working out at the gym, exercising with a personal trainer, and other physical related activities. High school football was the first, though, so it’s the one I remember the most distinctly.

THAT was nothing compared to what I endured yesterday.

I have a mental defect install by my parents at a young age that makes be believe that I can do ANYTHING if I put my mind to it. I still believe that, but yesterday was the first time that my body had to remind me that there’s only so much I can force it to do via the aforementioned brain induced anomaly.

I walked twelve miles to take this photo:

That’s Shannon and I in the Grand Canyon. Note: IN the Grand Canyon. That river behind us? That’s the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The area we’re standing on (called Plateau Point) is six miles down from the southern rim. It’s nice and warm down there and the view is amazing. (Expect dozens of photos in a later post.)

The walk back is six miles worth of uphill terrain (think “very rocky staircase”) where you eventually return to an environment of snow and eighteen degree weather.  During the last two miles of the hike back up the canyon my body finally gave up. The overwhelming exhaustion had my physically drained to a point where I could only walk for five minutes and then have to rest for five minutes. It was excruciating.  With less than half a mile left to go, my wife (who runs 5ks and half-marathons for fun) went ahead to the top of the rim and bought me some coffee. The caffiene and sugar helped.

Upon making it back to the resort, I couldn’t stand. I started shaking from exhaustion and the cold. I could type on a barrage of adjectives and metaphors for the pain I felt last night and none of them – NONE of them – could do justice to how I felt. My mind was yelling at my body to move: stand, walk, shift around. It wouldn’t respond. I have never felt that helpless in my entire life. Seriously.

I didn’t leave the bed. Shannon, being an angel, went and got food for us and brought it to the room. After downing pizza with a lot of salt on it, I passed out. I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and feeling fatigued beyond belief.

This morning, as I type this, I can walk again… but I am thankful that my day will be spent sitting in a car for four hours and then sitting on a plane for four hours.

File this under “one of those stories Tom will tell over and over until the day he dies.” My trip to the Grand Canyon will live on as one of the most distinct moments in my life… and it was EPIC. :)